The present invention relates to a gun lock for a firearm, such as a pistol or rifle, to prevent the owner or any other person who uses the gun from firing the weapon at a “friend,” a VIP, or any other “protected person” or within sight of any object, such as a school bus, which is clearly “off limits” for the use of firearms.
It unfortunately sometimes happens that the owner of a gun or another person, who may or may not be authorized to use the gun (the “first person”), may act carelessly, for example on a hunting trip, at home or even at a firing range, and accidentally point the gun and quite unintentionally shoot a second person. This happened, for example, to the then Vice President of the United States, Richard “Dick” Cheney, while participating in a quail hunt on a ranch in Texas. Mr. Cheney accidentally shot a friend, Harry Wittington, a 78-year-old attorney who was along on the hunting trip, and severely wounded him with a shotgun.
It would be desirable if a gun could be automatically prevented from firing when and if it was inadvertently, or even intentionally, aimed at a second person who is not an “enemy” (a military term) of the first person.
In addition, it would be desirable if a gun (any gun) were prevented from firing (1) within certain geographical areas such as the vicinity of a school, place of worship or other location where people congregate, (2) aimed at a particular person who, as a government official or other VIP, may be under a heightened danger gun violence, or (3) aimed at a person who has obtained a protective order against someone else who has threatened gun violence.
Various systems are known which are designed to prevent “friendly fire” of a weapon. The U.S. Patent Publication No. 2017/0074610 to Winiecki discloses a so-called “safety beacon” which transmits a warning to the user of a firearm that a “friendly person is in their line of fire.” The safety beacon is worn by a user in order to communicate their presence to the firearm and to consequently communicate their presence to the shooter of the firearm.
The U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0152840 to McCloskey et al. teaches a system for preventing firing of a gun when it is aimed at a friendly person (e.g. a soldier) or object (e.g. a military tank). This is accomplished by emitting an infra-red (IR) beam toward the target and detecting IR fluorescence, if present. In advance of using the system, all friendly targets must be provided with fluorescent material that emits IR at a certain frequency when illuminated.
The U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,140,509 and 9,217,626 and U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2017/0176123 each disclose a gun with a video camera mounted thereon that produces digital video images of the area at which the gun is aimed. However, the video images are coupled with a means for preventing the gun from firing.
The U.S. Pat. No. 9,310,165 discloses a military projectile launching control system which compares the confirmed target coordinates (CTC) of a target with the GPS coordinates of a friendly soldier and prevents firing when they are the same.
The U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2014/0028856 discloses a military firearm aiming system, having an imaging device connected to an image processor and display, for “reducing the probability of missing a target.” The system uses GPS for determining the user location with respect to the locations of friendly and unfriendly forces to avoid “friendly fire.”
The U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2016/0054083 discloses firearm safety apparatus configured to be attached to a gun having a trigger guard which prevents access to the trigger when locked. The trigger guard can be unlocked by a password, a biometric fingerprint, a voice command, an RFID sensor or the like. The specification, paragraph [0065] also states that the system may be integrated with a camera with a “built-in camera algorithm . . . configured to detect faces and have night vision, so as to identify names of potential targets (connected online or with built in memory), and would enable features like identification of friendly targets, and could eliminate friendly fire like hitting a family member at night or in the dark. The vision identification feature may provide a user notification-identification that the line of sight includes a friendly target. The notification-identification could also be accompanied with a slight vibration.”
However, the disclosure is primarily concerned with the mechanical aspects of the trigger guard and includes no teaching of how to implement such a camera and algorithm to inhibit friendly fire.
The subject matter of these prior patents and the patent publication is incorporated herein by reference.